Just hours before addressing the UN General Assembly, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appeared on American television and stated plainly: “I do not see Hamas as a terrorist organization. On the contrary, I see it as a legitimate resistance movement. Hamas has no real weapons or significant capabilities.”
This statement did not come from a marginal extremist figure. It came from the leader of a NATO member state now expected to play a central role in Gaza’s proposed “Peace Council” – the very body tasked with overseeing Hamas’s dismantling and Gaza’s postwar stabilization.
Phase II of President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan was intended to mark a strategic turning point: a decisive American-led effort to sever Hamas from power, dismantle its coercive apparatus, and establish an alternative governing framework for the Gaza Strip. The core concept was sound: Replace Hamas rule not with chaos, nor with the Palestinian Authority, but with a civilian mechanism capable of administering aid, restoring services, and preventing the reconstitution of armed control.
However, the inclusion of Turkey and Qatar in this framework represents a fundamental strategic contradiction – one that directly risks undermining the stated objective of demilitarization.
Qatar and Turkey undermine plan
The proposal to establish an Arab technocratic committee, as articulated by US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, is correct in principle. Governance matters. Control over civilian systems – budgets, education, welfare, infrastructure, and humanitarian access – determines political legitimacy and shapes the long-term balance of power. Hamas did not rule Gaza primarily through ideology, but through systematic population control backed by money, services, and force.
Any postwar mechanism must therefore control financial flows, enforce strict oversight of education and civil institutions, and draw clear boundaries of political legitimacy. This is not a humanitarian exercise alone; it is security architecture.
And this is precisely where Turkey and Qatar pose a problem.
Neither country can plausibly be considered a neutral or stabilizing actor in Gaza. Qatar has served for years as Hamas’s primary financial conduit. Hundreds of millions of dollars entered the region with international acquiescence, enabling the terrorist group to build tunnels, stockpile weapons, and entrench its military wing behind a civilian façade. The October 7 massacre was not an intelligence anomaly: It was the operational result of long-term financial and political enablement.
They view Gaza as a strategic asset
Turkey, under Erdogan, has consistently positioned itself as a patron of the Muslim Brotherhood across multiple arenas. Ankara has provided political shelter to Hamas figures, legitimized the organization internationally, and promoted Islamist movements wherever governance vacuums emerged. Turkey’s posture toward Hezbollah and its alignment with anti-Western regional blocs further underscore its strategic orientation.
For Ankara and Doha, Gaza is not a humanitarian responsibility – it is a strategic asset.
Their incentive structure is clear: securing a foothold in the Palestinian arena, shaping “the day after,” rehabilitating their international standing, and laundering years of Hamas sponsorship under the banner of peacekeeping. Participation in a US-backed framework grants them legitimacy, access to reconstruction funds, and influence over Gaza’s political future – all without requiring any ideological or strategic reversal.
From a security perspective, this creates a fatal flaw. You cannot assign actors with a documented history of enabling an armed group to supervise that group’s disarmament. No serious demilitarization effort places its enforcement mechanisms in the hands of former sponsors.
Even within Israel’s defense establishment, there is little illusion on this point: Qatari money, regardless of civilian labeling, will eventually find its way back into sustaining Hamas’s operational ecosystem. Financial opacity, weak enforcement, and political pressure will recreate the pre-October 7 dynamic under international cover – transforming Hamas’s current weakness into gradual recovery.
Israel's acquiescence is problematic
Israel’s acquiescence to this structure reflects a deeper diplomatic failure. By not proactively shaping the postwar governance model, Jerusalem ceded initiative and created a vacuum. That vacuum was quickly filled not by moderate Arab states – Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE – but by actors aligned with Islamist movements and radical Palestinian factions.
This is a basic law of geopolitics: when moderates are excluded, radicals enter.
The consequences are strategic, not theoretical. A misaligned governance framework will not stabilize Gaza: It will institutionalize ambiguity, weaken enforcement, and embed future conflict into the reconstruction phase. Hamas may lose visible authority, but its coercive infrastructure, ideological influence, and financial networks will remain intact.
If the Trump administration’s plan is to avoid a strategic missed opportunity, an immediate correction is required. Israel must lead a focused diplomatic effort to realign the framework: reintegrate pragmatic Arab partners, exclude adversarial enablers, and insist on a governance model explicitly designed to enforce demilitarization, not merely manage humanitarian optics.
Gaza’s future cannot be built on strategic self-deception. Stability is not achieved by inclusion for its own sake, but by aligning authority, incentives, and enforcement with the stated objective: the permanent removal of Hamas as a military and governing force.
Otherwise, Gaza may change on paper – but on the ground, the breach will remain open, waiting for Hamas to return.
The writer, an IDF reserve lieutenant-colonel, is CEO of the Israel Defense & Security Forum (IDSF).